Harbaugh saga promises to dominate 49ers' season

Updated 11:33 pm, Saturday, March 1, 2014

Could head coach Jim Harbaugh re-up with the 49ers, leaving the team to live happily ever after with him? Not likely.

Could head coach Jim Harbaugh re-up with the 49ers, leaving the team to live happily ever after with him? Not likely.

Photo: Marcio Jose Sanchez, Associated Press

Harbaugh saga promises to dominate 49ers' season

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Though the noise has died down, the issue of Jim Harbaugh's future isn't going away.

More than a week after news broke that the Cleveland Browns had inquired about obtaining him and revelations about his strained relations with general manager Trent Baalke made national headlines, the situation remains intriguing and problematic for the 49ers.

Harbaugh's situation will be the backdrop of 49ers free agency, which begins on March 11, the May draft and most definitely the inaugural season in Levi's Stadium.

On one hand, nothing tangible has changed. Harbaugh is still the coach. Baalke is still the general manager. The 49ers are still very good. And the tension between Harbaugh and others in the organization is nothing new. As one 49ers source told me, "We seem to thrive on chaos and distraction."

But on the other hand, the friction has gotten worse. And given the events of the past week, it's become public. So there's no pretending that everything is fine.

And from what I've been told, the tension isn't just upstairs in the building. One source with inside knowledge of the team says that Harbaugh's act has worn thin in the locker room, particularly among some key "face of the 49ers" type players. While the team is winning, that's not a problem. But a few losses could expose a widening rift.

The issue isn't how to make the 49ers' brass more cohesive. Plenty of organizations operate amid chaos and hard feelings. As a 49ers source told me, "If Jim and Trent have a beer together, it's not going to make Kap throw the ball 4 inches higher," referring to the final play of the NFC Championship Game.

Ouch.

No, the issue is who wins the power struggle and how it plays out. The pressure is on 49ers CEO Jed York to figure out this tricky negotiation. John Madden recently weighed in on KCBS, saying, "It's a lot easier to get a suit than it is to get a coach." Which is what you'd expect an old football coach to say, and echoes the belief of most 49ers fans.

Will the 49ers have to get a new coach? A new suit (shorthand for Baalke)?

How exactly will this play out?

There are, I believe, three possible scenarios:

-- Do nothing about a contract extension and live tensely with Harbaugh for one more year, with an all-or-nothing proposition of winning the Super Bowl in February. If the 49ers win the Super Bowl, York and parents will have to reward Harbaugh with the new mega-contract he seeks. And then Harbaugh will have the power to force out Baalke and select his own personnel guy. Or Baalke, seeing the writing on the wall, will choose to leave.

If the 49ers don't win it all, it probably doesn't matter how: either coming tantalizingly close again or having the first non-playoff season of Harbaugh's career. Either scenario will make a tense situation that much worse and make the 49ers willing to part ways even with one more year remaining on Harbaugh's contract. Trading him to a desperate team, like Miami or Dallas, would give the 49ers something in return.

-- Come to a contract agreement in the next few months and live tensely with Harbaugh for a few more years. This would depend on Harbaugh's willingness to accept less than top dollar, which the 49ers don't want to pay him until he wins a Super Bowl. This would also ensure that Harbaugh is coach for 2015, a season that the 49ers would very much like to end by playing a Super Bowl in their own stadium.

The stadium issue gives Harbaugh leverage because the 49ers want a seamless transition to Santa Clara without having their fans turn on them. Losing Harbaugh over money would cause an uproar, especially with the new size XXXL prices at Levi's.

But the 49ers' talent gives the organization leverage: Harbaugh desperately wants to win a Super Bowl and his best shot is with this group. Despite his protests to the contrary, Harbaugh knows that teams have windows and that those windows close. The 49ers' current window is probably going to last only another year or two. But this scenario would require Harbaugh to play nice, which might be impossible.

-- The final scenario is that Harbaugh re-ups and that he and the 49ers live happily ever after.

This is the most unlikely outcome. While I don't necessarily buy the Harbaugh expiration date theory - that he never stays anywhere more than four years (he was always going to end up in the NFL, so there was no way he was spending his prime coaching years in college) - I also don't believe he's the kind of personality that a team can live with for the long term.

One 49ers source said that even with a new contract for Harbaugh, the team would probably only buy peace for a few weeks before speculation started up again.

"That's just who Jim is," I was told. "He'd probably like to redo his contract every year, just out of competition."

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